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3.04.2014

3-Day Juice Cleanse

I've been wanting to do a juice cleanse for some time but never bit the
bullet, until now. I'm still trying to get over my bronchitis and crap,
so I thought what better time to revamp my immune system and pump it
full of vitamins than now?! I also want to prep myself to start eating better. I have gotten way too lazy so I need to step up the healthy eating.

I started googling juice cleanse and tons of juicing companies popped up. Pressed Juicery, Urban Remedy (UR) among a handful of others. I fell in love with the Urban Remedy juices and just their whole brand. I
thought, yeah! I'm on board with that! Until I added a THREE day
cleanse into my cart for a grand total of $224.97 ($45 shipping, $12.49/juice)!! Say what?! I just
couldn't justify that price when I knew I could make it myself.

I made my plan of attack on Saturday by first researching what's on the
UR cleanse and then the ingredients for each juice. They list all the
ingredients online but not exact recipes, obviously, so I did some
Pinteresting and came up with recipes for each.

What I really loved about the UR cleanse was that there are six
different juices that you drink every 2-3 hours for the three days. I
like the variety and I like that each is geared to the time of day
you're drinking it. Example, super energizing Brainiac in the morning
and a relaxing comfort juice in the evening.

//Cost breakdown//

Since this was my first time juicing, I was a little lot unsure of how
much fruit would yield 16 oz of juice (x3 days). In hindsight, I could have bought
a lot less stuff. So this is the total cost but I have a little extra
of everything that I could juice again next week and only have to buy cucumbers and beets.

The total cost: $116. $38/day. $6.44/juice.
That's about a $6.06 savings per juice compared to the UR program! Plus, I still have enough to juice again next week. Boom! I'm not sure it would have been cheaper if I bought less because the Costco price/unit is less than say Whole Foods/Sprouts price/unit. You get me?

I made all three days worth of juice in one day. I know that's not as
good but I was borrowing my moms juicer and needed to return it. Plus I
would not have had enough time during the week. I stored everything in
mason jars and organized them according to the UR sequence. I bought as
much as possible organic with the exception of the kale, beets and
berries.

1 16oz serving: 8 oz Acai juice, 8oz ionized water, 1 lemon, and sprinkle cayenne. The UR juice calls for Stevia but I don't like it so I left it out.

This was a little tricky because the UR one calls for acai powder. I
found some but it wasn't what I was looking for. It was a small package and $18. I
ended up finding a premade juice at Costco. It was $6 for two cartons
and organic. While it wasn't just acai, it was what I went with. I also didn't pre-make this one since it didn't require any actual juicing.

Let me tell you, beets are some messy business!! This juice created tons of pulp so I had to clean out the juicer midway. I made the mistake of not covering the hole where the juice comes out and there was red beet juice everywhere! If anyone walked in on me they would have thought something other than juicing was going on! It was a bloody mess!

//5 Warrior//

1 16oz serving: 8oz Ionized water, mixed berry 'juice' to get to 16oz, 1/4c chia seed and Stevia (again, I left this out. The juices are plenty sweet on their own)

This one was the trickiest of them all. I could only find a fairly small package of raspberries for $6. This would have broke the bank to juice 48oz of juice. I went instead with the frozen berry blend from Costco. I let the bag defrost completely first then attempted to juice it. BAD idea! I literally got one lousy drop from 2 cups of berries. I quickly nixed that idea and threw about half the bag in the Ninja blender with some ionized water. I pulled out my fine mesh strainer and pressed all those berries through. This was a painstaking process! Press your own juice and it'll warm you twice?! I had to take a break and move onto juice 6...

Once I regained my stamina, I pressed on. I didn't pre-make the entire juice with the chia seeds. I just stored the berry juice and I'll make it in the evenings. I didn't know how chia seed would last for 3 days...

I actually started this juice first. Start by soaking the cashews in 8 cups of water. They are supposed to soak for 4 hours or overnight (in the fridge) but I soaked mine for 2.5 hours and they were soft enough.

Drain the cashews and run cold water over them until it runs clear. Toss the cashews and 2 cups of the ionized water into a blender. Blend for a couple minutes at a high setting. Then add in 2 mores cups of water, the vanilla and cinnamon to taste. Blend again until it's fine. You can run it through a piece of cheesecloth if you'd like. I left mine as is because...well I was just tired by this point. This milk is super yummy and fairly easy!!! I may have to try making it on the reg for Autumn and I.

So there you have it, my knockoff version of some fancy juicing. It took me about 3 hours to make 3 days worth of juice. Considering it was my first time juicing, I didn't think it was that bad. It went by super quick! Having everything organized and grouped together per juice really helped speed up the process. I also made sure everything was cut down to size to fit in the juicer shoot. The 16oz mason jars were the perfect size too!

All of these juicing companies recommend drinking lots of water 3 days before, eating mostly clean and lots of raw fruits/veggies, eliminate caffeine and sugar to prep your body. I did not do this. Eeek! You also need to drink lots of water throughout the day. I spruced mine up with some fresh pineapple chunks.

I completed day 1. Not gonna lie, it was rough! I didn't physically feel hungry so I know it's all a mental game at this point. I swear someone was parading around KFC by my desk all day. Why is it that when you can't have something, it's all you think about?! Well I'm going to be strong and stick this through. As my friend Katie said, you can do anything for 3 days! Yes, I can! I'll have a full recap of my results later in the week.

Happy Juicing!

As with any diet, consult your physician first. I'm certainly not a juicing expert!

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About Me

On this journey of motherhood with the loves of my life. I'm an Architect (almost) by day, 80 year old grandma by night crocheting away. You can catch all my yarn creations at www.sometimessweetstudio.com